The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the only major civil rights group to back Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court, has come out against him.At its meeting in Baltimore yesterday, the SCLC board took a unanimous vote of "no confidence" in Justice Thomas, the court's only black member.The group said in a strongly worded resolution that it was "profoundly disturbed" by his decisions since he joined the court five months ago after a bruising confirmation battle."Justice Clarence Thomas has failed to demonstrate the compassion, sensitivity, independence and intellectual courage . . . that was the prayer of the SCLC," the group said.

Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a relatively obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar, another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: ERSATZ English merrily plunders other languages whenever it finds something shiny. Ersatz (pronounced ERR-zahtz) is lifted directly from the German, where it means a substitution or an imitation, usually inferior, for the real thing. The OED cites an example from 1949: "A breakfast of black bread and captured ersatz coffee made from roasted grain.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the only major civil rights group to back Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court, yesterday came out against him.Meeting in Baltimore, the SCLC board took a unanimous vote of "no confidence" in Justice Thomas, the court's only black member.The group said in a strongly worded resolution that it was "profoundly disturbed" by his decisions since he joined the court five months ago after a bruising confirmation battle."Justice Clarence Thomas has failed to demonstrate the compassion, sensitivity, independence and intellectual courage . . . that was the prayer of the SCLC," the group said.

Buried deep in his dissent of this week's Supreme Court opinion outlawing the practice of sentencing juveniles to prison without parole for crimes short of murder, Justice Clarence Thomas hit upon an indefensible flaw in the majority's reasoning. The five justices who signed on to the majority opinion determined that such a sentence violates the 8th Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment because juveniles are not fully mature and cannot be held culpable in the same way as adults are. Because such offenders are still developing, the courts cannot justifiably determine that they are irredeemable and must at least entertain the possibility that they have been rehabilitated.

By Lyle Denniston and Lyle Denniston,Washington Bureau of The Sun | November 5, 1991

WASHINGTON -- At $153,600 a year, Clarence Thomas surely is Washington's most overpaid secretary, messenger and doorkeeper. But that is not all he does to earn that kind of money.Justice Thomas, of course, sits on the Supreme Court, and the six-figure salary is that high primarily to pay him for doing judge's work.But as the junior justice, he does more for his money than seven of his colleagues -- all but Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who gets an extra $7,000 a year for the special jobs that go with being the chief.

BOSTON -- Let me wish the Supreme Court justices a fond farewell as they set out on their summer vacation. We can all rest assured now that they won't do any more damage until the first week in October. And a special shout-out to Justice Clarence Thomas, who may embark on his annual road trip in his 40-foot motor home knowing that he has accomplished one life goal. The justice is now talked about even less in terms of race - less as the profligate successor to Justice Thurgood Marshall than as a certified member of the court's right wing.

JUST WHEN you think it's safe to go to your mail box again, the letters start a-comin' in.Thomas H. Hartman, of Columbia, took an opposite view of my suggestion that black people, if they forgive anybody, should forgive Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in addition to President Clinton."

WASHINGTON -- In the 1960s, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart declared that he could not define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. Today, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas does not define affirmative action in the same way that a lot of other people do, but he knows when he has not benefited from it. He reveals that view and more in a rare and surprisingly expansive interview with BusinessWeek senior writer Diane Brady, posted on the...

George is against Congress being "a privileged class of rulers who stand above the law." That's executive privilege.If Justice Thomas wants the controversy over with, why does the president keep whipping it up again?

Last year, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference endorsed Clarence Thomas' nomination to be a Supreme Court justice. It was the only civil rights organization to do so. This week, the SCLC board at a meeting in Baltimore voted "no confidence" in Justice Thomas.Justice Thomas has cast several votes and written an opinion that dismay civil rights supporters. He has agreed with the court's most conservative member, Antonin Scalia, in almost every case. But we think it is a little early to give up on Justice Thomas.

It would be hard to think of anyone whose portrayal in the media differs more radically from reality than that of Justice Clarence Thomas. His recent appearances on 60 Minutes, the Rush Limbaugh program and other media outlets provide the general public with its first in-depth look at the real Clarence Thomas. These media appearances are part of the promotion of his memoir, My Grandfather's Son. In an era when too many judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, seem to be playing to the media gallery - if not writing opinions or leaking information with an eye toward favorable coverage in the press - Justice Thomas' refusal to play that game tells us a lot about him. His memoir tells us more.

BOSTON -- Let me wish the Supreme Court justices a fond farewell as they set out on their summer vacation. We can all rest assured now that they won't do any more damage until the first week in October. And a special shout-out to Justice Clarence Thomas, who may embark on his annual road trip in his 40-foot motor home knowing that he has accomplished one life goal. The justice is now talked about even less in terms of race - less as the profligate successor to Justice Thurgood Marshall than as a certified member of the court's right wing.

WASHINGTON -- In the 1960s, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart declared that he could not define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. Today, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas does not define affirmative action in the same way that a lot of other people do, but he knows when he has not benefited from it. He reveals that view and more in a rare and surprisingly expansive interview with BusinessWeek senior writer Diane Brady, posted on the...

Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York said that you are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts. However, many on the political left act as if they are entitled to their own facts - and especially the "fact" that those who oppose their ideas are either intellectually or morally inferior. In other words, you cannot oppose "diversity," gun control, global warming hysteria or gay marriage unless there is something wrong with you. No hard evidence is necessary to support this conclusion.

ATLANTA -- President Bush may be as confused about the controversy surrounding the nomination of Harriet Miers as I am. Sure, he nominated a crony. So what? He's been doing that for the past five years. Indeed, he started his presidency without enough of his own cronies to put in office, so he had to borrow some from his daddy. Since when did his supporters mind? No, Ms. Miers is not the most qualified person the president could find. Neither was Clarence Thomas when Mr. Bush's father found him. But Dad used a similar phrase in presenting Justice Thomas 14 years ago, and conservatives parroted the line with a straight face.

SINCE THE bruising and surreal experience of Justice Clarence Thomas' nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1991, African-Americans have resigned ourselves to the reality of being "represented" on the nation's highest court by a black justice who does not share the views that most of us hold about affirmative action, the treatment of prisoners, the government's obligation toward the poor or almost any other matter at the intersection of...

WASHINGTON -- The only woman who voted to put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court says she now regrets her decision.Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum, a Kansas Republican who in 1991 cast a controversial vote to confirm Justice Thomas, said yesterday that she is disappointed with his performance on the nation's highest court."

WASHINGTON -- Anita F. Hill, the Oklahoma University law professor who accused Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, said in a television interview broadcast yesterday that she was skeptical of recent expressions of contrition and regret by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who interrogated her harshly in Justice Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation hearings a year ago.On the "Today" program on NBC-TV, Ms. Hill was asked about Mr. Specter's statements in his re-election campaign that he now better understands the issue of sexual harassment.

WILL PRESIDENT BUSH actually have the guts to nominate Clarence Thomas for chief justice when that opportunity arises, probably soon? You know he's just aching to do it. Because of their shared judicial philosophy, of course. But also because of that arrogant willfulness Mr. Bush has. Heck, why be president if you can't rub your critics' noses in it? And will the Democrats have the guts to oppose Justice Thomas' elevation to chief? Justice Thomas' performance at his 1991 confirmation hearing, the things we know now that we didn't know then, even the things we knew then but were bullied or rushed into ignoring, are not just fair game.

IN RESEARCHING my biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, I was continually struck by the depth and ferocity of the attacks against him by black intellectuals, academics and politicians. Justice Thomas, who begins a new term on the court tomorrow, has been called Judas, a traitor to his race and a white man masquerading in black skin. His face has been caricatured into a kerchief-wearing Aunt Jemima and a big-lipped lawn jockey. A common ingredient to the vitriol is that Justice Thomas, descended from Georgia slaves, has sold out the interests of black Americans.